The former president of Chicago State University acted without integrity and violated school policy when he made false allegations against two board members as they were trying to push him out, a state ethics investigation found.

Wayne Watson's conduct "went against the expectation that employees act with integrity when representing the university, and raises serious questions and concerns as to his leadership of the university," according to a report released last week by the Governor's Office of Executive Inspector General, which investigated the matter.

Watson's presidency at the Chicago public university ended Dec. 31. He now has the title of "president emeritus" and will be paid his annual salary of about $200,000 until his contract ends June 30, a school spokesman said.

The state investigation zeroed in on a few chaotic weeks in late February and early March 2013 when the university's board of trustees, then led by chair Gary Rozier and vice chair Zaldwaynaka "Z" Scott, decided to seek new leadership at the South Side university. They had negotiated with Watson that he would take a yearlong sabbatical and had named an acting president, but Watson then decided he wanted to stay in office.

As the full board was set to meet on Watson's future, Watson sent a four-page letter to trustees Feb. 26 that alleged Rozier and Scott were retaliating against him because he wouldn't accede to their pressures to hire and reward their friends, according to the report. At the same time, the board had hired a law firm to investigate whether Watson was having a relationship with a university employee and whether that employee received improper benefits because of it, according to the state report.

Trustees decided March 8 that Watson would remain as president as they decided whether any action should be taken for his alleged violation of school policy related to the employee. Ultimately, Gov. Pat Quinn named new trustees to replace Rozier and Scott, and Watson's contract was extended until June 2016.

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The state investigation began after the ethics office received two complaints Feb. 28, 2013 — one about the alleged misconduct by the former board members and another that included a copy of Watson's letter.

The ethics investigators, after interviewing Watson and the former board members, determined that Rozier and Scott did nothing wrong, and instead found "wrongdoing" by Watson.

Watson's letter "contained numerous false accusations ... for which President Watson had no evidentiary support," the report said. In two interviews with investigators in late 2013, Watson backed away from the allegations he had made.

Watson told investigators the letter was "written in haste because he wanted to get it to board members before they took action to remove him as president," according to the report.

"This, paired with the fact that President Watson made such serious allegations that he now admits were untrue, is troubling and suggests President Watson made these claims only in an effort to discredit Mr. Rozier and Ms. Scott, and keep his job," the report states.

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The investigators concluded that Watson's conduct violated the university's human resources policy that states all employees are expected "to act with integrity at all times in the workplace, or when representing the company."

The ethics office recommended that Chicago State's board "take whatever action it deems appropriate" with respect to Watson. A draft report was provided to trustees in September.

The board decided not to discipline him. Board chair Anthony Young told the Tribune on Tuesday that he thought the investigation was "flawed" and that Watson already planned to step down as president.

"How can we issue disciplinary action on an investigation that never notified him of the charges or gave him an opportunity to respond?" Young said.

In a reply included with the ethics report dated Jan. 4, Watson's attorney wrote that the investigation violated Watson's due process rights because investigators never informed Watson that he was a target of the review, and therefore the final report "is unreliable."

He also argued the university's policy manual was not enough to form the basis for a finding of wrongdoing, and that Watson was unaware of any employee who had been disciplined "solely for violating the HR manual."

"An improper and unjust finding by the OEIG that President Watson ran afoul of a sentence in an HR Manual cannot negate President Watson's lifetime of commitment and service," wrote Watson's attorney, Robert Markin.

Markin told the Tribune that Watson "prepared the letter in good faith based on what he understood at the time."

"Years of investigations, lots of interviews, lots of state resources expended to find that someone violated a sentence in the employee manual," Markin said. "They seemed to have been searching for something to find."

Rozier and Scott did not return calls from the Tribune, and school spokesman Thomas Wogan declined to comment.

Watson began as president of Chicago State in 2009, and previously was chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago. Thomas Calhoun, an administrator at North Alabama University, took over as president Jan. 1.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 27, 2016, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Report lashes ex-president of Chicago State - Ethics probe finds he falsely accused rivals on board" —
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